Hi, my name is Hailie. I'm interested in being a game art designer, more specifically character design and anything that goes along with it. I've looked at tons of game and art schools even a few traditional schools but I have no idea how or where to get started. I graduated in 2011 and I'm ready to further my education. I love to draw, paint, sketch, and do basically anything artistic but I have strong feelings that it is definitely not enough. I'm stuck at home twiddling my thumbs, not knowing where I should go. I need advice from someone who either was in my situation or just can help me in general.

Drawing is the fundamental skill for pretty much all art. If you're looking at colleges, find one that offers good classes in Observational Drawing, Figure Drawing and Anatomy. Make sure the class does a lot of professor and peer critiques.
Even if the school doesn't have a class specifically for game art, if you have a strong foundation in the fundamentals, you'll be able to figure out the rest on your own/online/making a game with friends.

While you don't want online courses to replace college, they are an excellent way to expand your skills in addition to college granted that you can manage your time.

For example, CGSociety has a 3 week course in rapid game character creation starting October 29th. http://beta.workshops.cgsociety.org/. They have a variety of great courses taught by industry experts. I haven't personally been able to take advantage of these yet, but I do drool over them.

A digital tutors subscription http://www.digitaltutors.com/11/index.php is worth the money. They break their tutorials up into 15 minute or less chunks so they're thorough and easy to follow. 3d Buzz is another recommended paid tutorial site.